The Complete Tawny Man Trilogy Omnibus (61 page)

I let him wait while I caught my breath. ‘Water. Rocks. Trees.’

‘No town? No road?’

‘No.’

‘So what are we going to do?’ He sounded annoyed, as if it were all my fault.

I knew what I would do. I was going back through the Skill-pillar, even if I had to dive to find it. But what I said to him was, ‘What I tell you, she knows. Isn’t that true?’

That stole all his words from him. He stood for a time just staring at me. When I set off down the beach, he followed me, unaware of how much authority he had ceded to me.

The day was not warm, but hiking on sand demands more effort than walking on solid ground. I was tired from my climb and preoccupied with my own worries, so I made no effort at conversation. It was Dutiful who broke the silence. ‘You said she was dead,’ he abruptly accused me. ‘That’s impossible. If she is dead, how does she speak to me?’

I took a breath to speak, sighed it out after a moment, and then took another. ‘When you are Witted, you bond to an animal. It’s more than sharing thoughts, it’s sharing being. After a time, you can see through the animal’s eyes, experience its life as it does, perceive the world as the animal does. It isn’t just –’

‘I
know
all that. I am Piebald, you know.’ He gave a snort of contempt for my words.

I don’t think an interruption had ever irritated me more. ‘Old Blood,’ I corrected him sharply. ‘Tell me you’re Piebald again, and I’ll have to beat it out of you. I’ve no respect for what they do with their magic. Now. How long have you known that you’re Witted?’ I demanded suddenly.

‘I – why –’ I saw him struggle to push his mind past my threat. I’d meant it and he knew it. He took a breath. ‘For about five months. Since the cat was given to me. Almost as soon as her leash was given over to me, I felt –’

‘You felt a trap closing on you, one you’ve been too stupid to perceive. The cat was given to you because others knew you were Witted before you knew it yourself. So you’ve shown signs
of it, without being aware that you were doing so. Someone noticed, someone decided to use you. So they presented you with an animal to bond with. That’s not how it’s supposed to be, you know. Witted parents don’t just hand their child an animal and say, here, this is your partner for as long as you both live. No. Usually the child is well schooled in the Wit and its consequences before it bonds. Usually the child makes a quest of some sort, seeking a like-minded animal. When it’s done right, it’s like getting married. This wasn’t done right. You weren’t educated about the Wit by people that cared about you. A group of Witted saw an opening, and took advantage of it. The cat didn’t choose you. That’s bad enough. But I don’t think the cat was even allowed to choose the woman. She stole it, as a kit, from the mother’s den, and forced the bond. Then the woman died, but she kept on living in the cat.’

His eyes were wide and dark, staring up at me. He looked slightly aside from me, and I felt the Wit working between them.

‘I don’t believe you. She says she can explain it all, that you’re trying to confuse me.’ The words spilled out of him hastily, as if he tried to hide behind them.

I glanced over at the boy. Scepticism and confusion had closed his face.

I took a breath and kept my temper. ‘Look, lad. I don’t know all the details. But I can speculate. Perhaps she knew she was dying; maybe that’s why she chose such a helpless creature and forced the bond. When a bond is uneven, as that one would have been, the stronger partner can control the weaker one. She could dominate the kit, and move in and out, sharing the cat’s body as she pleased. And when she died, instead of dying with her own body, she stepped over to the cat’s.’

I stopped walking. I waited until Dutiful met my eyes. ‘You’re next,’ I said quietly.

‘You’re mad! She loves me!’

I shook my head. ‘I sense great ambition in her. She’ll want
a human body of her own again, not to be a cat, not to die when the cat’s days are done. She’d have to find someone. It would have to be someone that was both Witted, and ignorant of the Wit. Why not someone well placed? Why not a prince?’

Conflicting expressions flickered over his face. Some part of him knew I spoke truth, and it shamed him that he had been so deceived. He struggled to disbelieve me. I tried to temper my words, so that he did not feel so foolish.

‘I think she selected you. You never had any choice at all, any more than the cat did. The woman/cat is what you’re bonded to, not the cat itself. And it wasn’t done for love of you, any more than she loved the cat. No. Somewhere, someone has a very careful plan, and you’re just a tool for it. A tool for the Piebalds.’

‘I don’t believe you!’ His voice rose on the words. ‘You’re a liar!’ On those words, his voice cracked.

I saw his shoulders heave with the breath he took. I almost felt my Skill-command hold him back from attacking me. For a time I was carefully quiet. When I judged he had mastered himself, I spoke very quietly. ‘You’ve called me a bastard, a thief, and now a liar. A prince should be more mindful of what insults he flings, unless he thinks that his title alone will protect him. So here’s an insult for you, and a warning. Hide behind being a prince while calling me nasty names, and I’ll call you a coward. The next time you insult me, your bloodlines won’t stop my fist.’

I held his gaze until he looked aside from me, a cub cowed by a wolf. I lowered my voice, forcing him to listen carefully to catch my words. ‘You’re not stupid, Dutiful. You know I’m not a liar. She’s dead, and you are being used. You don’t want it to be true, but that’s not the same as disbelieving me. You’ll probably keep hoping and praying that something will happen to prove I’m wrong. It won’t.’ I took a deep breath. ‘About the only thing I can offer you right now is that none of this is really your fault. Someone should have protected you from
this. Someone should have taught you about Old Blood from the time you were small.’

There was no way to admit to either of us that that someone was me. The same person who had introduced him to the Wit and all it could be, through Skill-dreams when he was four.

We walked for a long time without speaking. I kept my eyes on my seaweed-festooned snag. Once I’d left the Prince here, I could not predict how long I’d be gone. Could he care for himself? The treasures in the alcove made me uneasy. Such wealth belonged to someone, and that person might resent an intruder on his beach. Yet I could not take him back with me. He’d be a hindrance. A time alone, taking care of himself might do him good, I decided. And if I died trying to save the Fool and Nighteyes? Well, at least the Piebalds would not have the Prince.

I set my teeth, trudged through the sand and kept my grim thoughts to myself. We had nearly reached my snag when Dutiful spoke. His voice was very low. ‘You said my father taught you to Skill. Did he teach you to –’

Then he tripped on something. As he fell, the toe of his boot jerked a silver chain free of the sand that had covered it. He sat up, cursing, and then reached down to free his boot. As he dragged the looped chain clear of the sand, I gaped at it. It was an intricately woven thing, each thread of metal the thickness of a horsehair. He coiled it into his hand, a necklace-length of chain that filled his palm. He gave a final tug to free the last loop, and a figurine popped from the sand. It was fastened to the chain as a dangling charm. It was the length of Dutiful’s little finger. Bright colours had been enamelled onto the metal.

It was the image of a woman. We stared down at the proud face. The artist had given her black eyes and let the dark gold shine through for the tone of her skin. Her hair was painted black with a standing blue ornament crowning it. The draped garments bared one of her breasts. Bare feet of dark gold peeped from beneath the hem.

‘She’s beautiful,’ I said. He made no reply.

The Prince was engrossed by her. He turned the figurine over in his hand and traced the fall of hair down her back.

‘I don’t know what this is made from. It weighs scarcely anything.’

We both lifted our heads at the same instant. Perhaps it was our Wit warning us of the presence of another living being, but I do not think so. I had caught the scent of something indescribably foul on the air. Yet even as I turned my head to seek the source of the stench, I almost became persuaded it was a sweet perfume. Almost.

Some things one never forgets. The insidious tendrilling of mind-touch is one of them. Terror spasmed through me and I slammed up the Skill-walls around my mind in a reflex I thought I had forgotten. My reward was that I perceived the full foulness of its stench as I turned to confront a nightmare creature.

It stood as tall as I did, but that was only the portion of its body that reared upright. I could not decide if it reminded me of a reptile or a sea mammal. The flat flounder eyes on the front of its face looked unnatural in their orientation. The brain-bump of its skull seemed tumescently large. Its lower jaw dropped like a trap door as it stared at us. Its mouth could have engulfed a rabbit. A stiff, fishy tongue protruded from it briefly. As we stared, it jerked its tongue back in and closed its jaws with a snap.

To my horror, the transfixed prince was smiling at the creature in an addled way. He swayed a step closer to it. I set my hand firmly to his shoulder and gripped hard. I set my thumb to his flesh and tried to invoke the earlier Skill-bond I had laid on him without breaching my own walls. ‘Come with me,’ I said quietly but firmly. I drew him back towards me, and if he did not actively obey at least he did not resist me.

The thing reared up even taller. Sacs at the sides of its throat puffed up as it lifted its flipper-like limbs. It suddenly spread
finny hands that were large and wide. Claws like bullfish spines stood out from the ends of the digits. Then it spoke, wheezing and belching the syllables. The shock of its distorted words felt like pebbles pelting against me. ‘You did not come by the path. How came you?’

‘We came by –’

‘Silence!’ I warned the Prince and gave him a rough shake. I was backing us away from the creature, but it hummocked its ungainly body over the sand towards us. Where had it come from? I glanced about wildly, fearing to see more of the creatures, but there was only the one. It made a sudden rush forwards, interposing its huge body between the tableland and us. I responded by retreating towards the water. It was where I wished to go anyway, the only possible escape that I could imagine. I prayed the tide would bare the Skill-pillar.

‘You must leave it!’ the creature belched at us. ‘What the ocean washes up on the treasure-beach must always remain here. Drop what you have found.’

The Prince opened his hand. The figurine fell but the chain tangled on his lax fingers, to dangle from his hand like a puppet.

‘Drop it!’ the creature repeated more urgently.

I decided the time for subtlety was past. I drew my sword awkwardly with my left hand, for I feared to let go of the Prince. ‘Stay back,’ I warned. My feet were crunching over barnacles on the uneven rocks. I risked a glance behind me. I could see my squared-off black stones, but they barely stuck up above the water. The creature mistook my look.

‘Your ship has left you here! There is nothing out there but ocean. Drop the treasure.’ There was a hissing quality to its speech, most unnerving. It had no more lips than a lizard, but the teeth that the opened mouth bared were multitudinous and sharp. ‘The treasures of this beach are not for humans! What the sea brings here is meant to be lost to humankind! You were not worthy of it.’

Seaweed squelched underfoot. The Prince slipped and nearly went down. I kept my grip on his shoulder and dragged him back to his feet. Three more steps, and water lapped around my feet.

‘You cannot swim far!’ the creature warned us. ‘The beach will have your bones!’

Like a distant wind, I faintly felt the buffeting of fear that he directed at us. The Prince’s mind was unshielded, and he gave a sudden cry of wild terror. ‘I don’t want to drown!’ he cried out. ‘Please, I don’t want to drown!’ When he turned to me, the whites showed all round the edges of his eyes. I did not think him a coward. I knew only too well what it was like to have another mind impose panic on my unguarded thoughts.

‘Dutiful. You have to trust me. Trust me.’

‘I can’t!’ he bellowed, and I believed him. He was torn between us, my Skill-command for obedience warring with the insidious waves of fear the creature gushed at him. I tightened my grip and dragged him back with me as I retreated. The water was up to our knees. Every wave nudged against us in its passage. The wallowing creature did not hesitate to follow us. Doubtless it would be more at home in the sea. I risked another glance behind me. The Skill-pillar was close. I felt that vague confusion that the black memory stone always inflicted on me. It was strange, to push myself towards disorientation in the hopes of salvation.

‘Give me the treasure!’ the creature commanded, and virulent green droplets shimmered suddenly at the end of its claws. It lifted them menacingly.

In one motion, I sheathed my sword, threw my left arm around Dutiful, and flung us both backward into the water. As the creature dived towards us, I thought I saw a sudden flash of comprehension in those inhuman eyes, but it was too late. We fell full-length into the cold salt water, and my groping fingers sought and found the canted surface of the fallen pillar. I had no time to warn the Prince as it swallowed us.

We stumbled out into an almost-warm afternoon. The Prince dropped nervelessly from my grip to sprawl on a cobblestoned street in the gush of saltwater that had accompanied us. I drew a deep breath and looked around us. ‘Wrong face!’ I had known this could happen but had been too intent on escaping the thing on the beach to consider it. Each face of a Skill-pillar was carved with a rune that told where that surface would transport you. It was a wonderful system, if one understood what the runes meant. With a jolt, I suddenly grasped how much I had just risked. What if this pillar had been buried under stone, or shattered to pieces? I dared not think what might have become of us. Shaking, I stared at the foreign landscape. We stood in the windswept ruins of an abandoned Elderling city. It looked vaguely familiar and I wondered if it were the same city that a similar pillar had once carried me to. But there was no time for exploration or speculation. All had gone wrong. My original plan had been to return alone through the pillar, to rush unhindered to the aid of my friends. But I could not leave Dutiful stunned and alone in this barren place any more than I could have left him on the hostile beach. I’d have to take him with me. ‘We have to go back,’ I told the Prince. ‘We have to get back to Buck exactly as we came.’